Page 57 of Chaos Luck Wrath

She hadn’t known what to expect, but she hadn’t expected him to look anything less than disfigured and crazy-eyed from the little she had heard of his reputation. Instead, he had that rugged and dangerous type of charm cloaked around him. Layne guessed that not every rumor had merit after all.

Skipping the pleasantries in favor of wanting to get down to business, “You going to let me in or are you waiting to see if I shoot you?” she asked. She typically did a good job masking her nerves with her attitude but given the past few months, her anxiety was at its peak.

He widened the door enough for her to barely pass. “You’re not what I expected.”

“I’m not what I expected either,” she snorted, dropping her hand from the weapon holstered at her back and stepping past him into the room drenched in luxury items.

She set her helmet down on a small table as her eyes scanned the room for any signs of a potential ambush. Nothing seemed out of place, at least for a place of this caliber.

The room was laid out in three sections. Upon entry, you were greeted with a living area straight ahead of you and a kitchenette to the right–as if the wealthy elites who frequented this type of place actually cooked for themselves. To the left of the sofa in the living space was a door to a separate room where she could just barely see the corner of a bed inside.

Layne turned to face Daniil after hearing the door shut. “I don’t trust you,” she spoke with honesty as she watched each move he made as he stepped further into the room.

He cocked his head slightly. “Then, why are you here?”

“As much as it pains me to say it, I need someone that can’t be trusted.” Keeping the status quo of how she operated her business was getting her nowhere except closer to the grave.

He made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a chuckle.

Layne explained, “My brother has decided to make it his life’s mission to either destroy me or drive me to insanity. So far, he’s making good progress on the latter.”

“From the looks of things, he’s not doing too bad on the former.” He motioned at the cut above her eyebrow and the bruised cheekbone she was sporting. Daniil walked by her to the small wet bar where he retrieved a previously poured glass of alcohol.

Her jaw tightened as she tried to prevent her irritation from reaching her voice. “He’s getting help and I need to know how the fuck he’s always one step ahead of me.”

“What do you want me to do?” He sipped from the glass in his hand.

She stomped over to him after pulling a piece of paper from her pocket and slammed it down on the wet bar. “Find this asshole. I want to know everything he knows. I want to know everything from the moment he met my brother to the last time he jerked off.” Her eyes flared with her rising temper.

Seemingly unrattled by her minor outburst, Daniil picked up the paper, unfolding it to reveal the name—Nicholas Orellano. Committing the name to memory, he dropped it back down onto the counter.

“I’ve heard you have quite the personal security team.” As Layne’s expression slipped in surprise he knew anything about Joey or Gage, he added, “Did you think I would agree to this without doing some research of my own?”

He set down the empty glass after consuming the remainder of the amber liquid. “Why not allow them to do their job and take care of you?”

She rolled her eyes at the concept she had grown tired of since the day she was born. “There are complications.”

He smirked. “It is not a very complicated concept for a man, or men, to take care of a woman.” The innuendo quite clearly rested on top of his words.

Her shining green eyes narrowed. “My needs are more than taken care of. What I don’t need is to be treated like an object incapable of making my own choices. If I wanted that, my life would be a whole lot fuckin’ easier.”

She nodded to the ring she observed on his left hand. “Is that what your wife wants, to be just another possession you have ownership of?”

Judging from the way Daniil’s eyes darkened, Layne’s words struck a nerve as she brought up his wife. She didn’t feel the least bit remorseful. If there was anything she had learned, it was that nothing was off-limits when it came to this lifestyle.

She shook her head, beginning to wonder if this jackass was as good as she was told. “They’re too invested. They’re too worried about me to worry about themselves.”

“Ah, so this is the problem, isn’t it? You can’t trust them or you can’t trust yourself. So which is it?” He posed the psychoanalytic question to her, and the way her face scrunched up said she wasn’t taking it well.

“I never said that,” Layne was quick to spit out.

He shrugged. “You didn’t have to.”

Patience was sure as hell not her strong suit and right now it was wearing thinner than a split hair. “Look, can you help me or not? For someone who supposedly knows how to get shit done, all I hear is a lot of damn bullshitting.”

“How badly do you want the information from this man?” Daniil pulled his phone out, appearing to quickly fire off a message.

“I don’t give a rat’s ass if you want to pluck each hair from his head one follicle at a time or you simply beat the crap out of him. Whatever makes you happy and gets what I want from him.” If it were up to Layne, she’d just shoot first and ask questions later. However, in this situation, she needed answers before any killing happened.

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